> Citizens for Responsible Solar was founded in an exurb of Washington, D.C., by a longtime political operative named Susan Ralston who worked in the White House under President George W. Bush and still has deep ties to power players in conservative politics.

> Ralston tapped conservative insiders to help set up and run Citizens for Responsible Solar. She also consulted with a longtime activist against renewable energy who once defended former President Donald Trump's unfounded claim that noise from wind turbines can cause cancer. And when Ralston was launching the group, a consulting firm she owns got hundreds of thousands of dollars from the foundation of a leading GOP donor who is also a major investor in fossil fuel companies. It's unclear what the money to Ralston's firm was used for. Ralston has previously denied that Citizens for Responsible Solar received money from fossil fuel interests.

> Ralston said in an email to NPR and Floodlight that Citizens for Responsible Solar is a grassroots organization that helps other activists on a volunteer basis. The group isn't opposed to solar, Ralston said, just projects built on farmland and timberland. Solar panels belong on "industrial-zoned land, marginal or contaminated land, along highways, and on commercial and residential rooftops," she said.

>But her group's rhetoric points to a broader agenda of undermining public support for solar. Analysts who follow the industry say Citizens for Responsible Solar stokes opposition to solar projects by spreading misinformation online about health and environmental risks. The group's website says solar requires too much land for "unreliable energy," ignoring data showing power grids can run dependably on lots of renewables. And it claims large solar projects in rural areas wreck the land and contribute to climate change, despite evidence to the contrary.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/258267

> > On 15 February 2023, the researchers reached a new milestone: for the first time, they were able to achieve an energy turnover of 1.3 gigajoules in this device. This was 17 times higher than the best value achieved before the conversion (75 megajoules). The energy turnover results from the coupled heating power multiplied by the duration of the discharge. Only if it is possible to couple large amounts of energy continuously into the plasma and also remove the resulting heat, a power plant operation is possible. > > > The energy turnover of 1.3 gigajoule was achieved with an average heating power of 2.7 megawatts, whereby the discharge lasted 480 seconds. This is also a new record for Wendelstein 7-X and one of the best values worldwide. Before the completion works, Wendelstein 7-X achieved maximum plasma times of 100 seconds at much lower heating power. > > > Within a few years, the plan is to increase the energy turnover at Wendelstein 7-X to 18 gigajoules, with the plasma then being kept stable for half an hour.

> On 15 February 2023, the researchers reached a new milestone: for the first time, they were able to achieve an energy turnover of 1.3 gigajoules in this device. This was 17 times higher than the best value achieved before the conversion (75 megajoules). The energy turnover results from the coupled heating power multiplied by the duration of the discharge. Only if it is possible to couple large amounts of energy continuously into the plasma and also remove the resulting heat, a power plant operation is possible.

> The energy turnover of 1.3 gigajoule was achieved with an average heating power of 2.7 megawatts, whereby the discharge lasted 480 seconds. This is also a new record for Wendelstein 7-X and one of the best values worldwide. Before the completion works, Wendelstein 7-X achieved maximum plasma times of 100 seconds at much lower heating power.

> Within a few years, the plan is to increase the energy turnover at Wendelstein 7-X to 18 gigajoules, with the plasma then being kept stable for half an hour.

Thoughts?

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-plasma-physics/article/abs/singlefieldperiod-quasiisodynamic-stellarator/9B2A5FDCCD7774E4F91BE45E75FDC6B0

> A single-field-period quasi-isodynamic stellarator configuration is presented. This configuration, which resembles a twisted strip, is obtained by the method of direct construction, that is, it is found via an expansion in the distance from the magnetic axis. Its discovery, however, relied on an additional step involving numerical optimization, performed within the space of near-axis configurations defined by a set of adjustable magnetic field parameters. This optimization, completed in 30 s on a single CPU core using the SIMSOPT code, yields a solution with excellent confinement, as measured by the conventional figure of merit for neoclassical transport, effective ripple, at a modest aspect ratio of eight. The optimization parameters that led to this configuration are described, its confinement properties are assessed and a set of magnetic field coils is found. The resulting transport at low collisionality is much smaller than that of W7-X, and the device needs significantly fewer coils because of the reduced number of field periods.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.05797 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.05797.pdf

In 1957, Valencia experienced a devastating flood that forever changed the city’s relationship with the Turia River. Nearly 3/4 of the city was inundated by floodwater and over 60 people lost their lives. The following year, the city embraced a plan to divert the river around its western outskirts to the Mediterranean Sea.

A park wasn’t the city leadership’s first idea—in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion, they envisioned an elaborate highway system through the heart of the City. But by 1970 the citizens pushed back and protested the highway proposal under the motto “The bed of Turia is ours and we want green!” By the end of the decade, the City approved legislation to turn the riverbed into a park and commissioned Ricard Bofill to create a master plan in 1982. The plan created a framework for the riverbed and divided it into 18 zones. Currently, all but one of the zones has been developed.

The resulting design establishes a monumental 5 mile green swath within a dense and diverse urban fabric, including the historic center of the city, and has an average span of 600 feet, from bank to bank. The park comprises over 450 acres and is characterized by bike paths, event spaces, active recreation fields, fountains, and many notable structures.

A bit more history and a lot of pics of the park in the former riverbed.

Fun fact: now the traffic bridges don't go above the river, they go above the park.

Openstreetmap, for those interested in a detailed view.

Do you know of any other weird parks like this?

A conventional ship with an easily deployable and retractable kite sail system burns less fuel than one without it. It's a type of hybrid vehicle, that has two propulsion methods, the main reliable one, and the supplementary one, for fuel efficiency. With the system installed and the kite in use, the ship saves an estimated 15% of fuel. However:

>"There's a structural problem slowing down the process: ship owners (who have to make the investment) often don't pay for the fuel – that's the charterer's duty. The charterer on the other side doesn't charter the ship for long enough a period to make installing low-carbon, but potentially expensive, untested technologies pay back."

The lack of carbon emissions regulations for shipping and low fuel prices have added to these difficulties. The shipping industry is responsible for around 940 million tonnes of CO2 annually, which is about 2.5% of the world's total CO2 emissions.

A company behind these (SkySails GmbH), while technically successful at cutting shipping costs and carbon emissions, has faced economic difficulties. Since then, the company (reborn as SkySails Group GmbH) has switched to land-based airborne wind energy systems for electricity production from high-altitude winds.

What do you think? Yay or nay? Is this technology dead in the water? Not worth the effort? Will we see ships like these in the near or distant future? What needs to change?

Some good reads:

http://www.vos.noaa.gov/MWL/apr_09/skysails.shtml

https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/lets-go-fly-a-kite-skysails-and-climate-change/

“Long overdue changes landing to what will eventually become GIMP 3.0.

This new development version of GIMP is a bit of a game-changer as it arrives with some long-anticipated CMYK-related features. The way they are implemented will make some users happy, but some users might feel annoyed. It’s got to do with early binding vs late binding.

So let’s talk about it. In layman terms...”

“This new development version of GIMP is a bit of a game-changer as it arrives with some long-anticipated CMYK-related features. The way they are implemented will make some users happy, but some users might feel annoyed. It’s got to do with early binding vs late binding…”

"This new development version of GIMP is a bit of a game-changer as it arrives with some long-anticipated CMYK-related features. The way they are implemented will make some users happy, but some users might feel annoyed. It’s got to do with early binding vs late binding..."

"This new development version of GIMP is a bit of a game-changer as it arrives with some long-anticipated CMYK-related features. The way they are implemented will make some users happy, but some users might feel annoyed. It’s got to do with early binding vs late binding..."